Hart, Ice Cube stuck in lethally unfunny 'Ride Along'

Kevin Hart, left, and Ice Cube star in "Ride Along." Hart plays Ben Barber, a man who wants to impress his fiancee's family. Cube plays the fiancee's brother, a police officer who insists that Ben accompany him on a 24-hour shift to prove that he's the right man to marry his sister. QUANTRELL COLBERT, UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Ice Cube and Kevin Hart fail to generate any comic chemistry in a cop/buddy farce that aims low and still misses.

Grade: F

This grossly incompetent cop comedy proves that even a comedian as spirited as Kevin Hart can’t improvise in a vacuum. He’s stuck in the role of a motor-mouthed security guard who goes on a ride-along with a tough cop (Ice Cube) to prove that he’s fit to marry the man’s sister and enroll in Atlanta’s police academy.

It’s a particularly heartless, mindless and soulless example of the buddy movie – really more just a frenemy burlesque of a buddy movie. Hart has nothing to play except yammering enthusiasm and improbable bravado. And Ice Cube appears to think he’s Dirty Harry reincarnate – his loner cop follows a lawman version of “by any means necessary,” sporting mean smiles or scowls that might as well be tattooed on his face.

The civilian uses knowledge of weaponry he’s developed as a gamer, along with his tiptop memory, to help crack a case involving a mysterious Mr. Big. But for the longest time, the gnarly policeman subjects his gung-ho acolyte to extravagant, mirthless humiliations. In this film’s terms, the citizen must prove himself by spraying bullets, lobbing grenades and executing an improbable physical takedown of a loathsome villain.

“Ride Along” contains credits for a backfield of screenwriters, but it has so little consistency or follow-through it might have been written in a single huddle. In one scene our embattled hero can’t handle the kickback of a gun or hit the rim of a target. Mere hours later, he casually pumps lead into a bad guy’s shoe.

The director, Tim Story, displays none of the flair for capturing distinctive personalities and performing rhythms that he showed in “Barbershop” and “The Fantastic Four.” From the horrendous shoot-’em-up opening to the routine gag stuck in the closing credits, “Ride Along” keeps shooting itself in the foot.

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